But Switzerland's multi-trillion-dollar financial industry is seeking new safeguards to protect bank data against misuse that could expose clients to crimes such as kidnapping or blackmail.

Money parked by Indians in Switzerland’s banks nearly halved to 676 million Swiss francs in 2016 to hit a record low amid a continuing clampdown on the suspected black money stashed behind their famed secrecy walls.

Swiss banking secrecy in its current form took shape before World War II, and provided the victims of Nazi persecution with a way to protect their assets.

The movement to scrap the policy in Switzerland and other well-known "tax havens" arose after the financial crisis of 2008 and subsequent eurozone debt crisis.